Beloved in Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We live in a moment of profound turbulence and sorrow. The wounds of our nation are exposed and raw. In the streets we see anger, fear, division, and apathy. On our screens we see cruelty normalized, dignity negotiated, and violence justified as expedient. Many feel helpless, some feel hardened, and others no longer know how to hope.

Yet as followers of Jesus Christ, we are not permitted the luxury of despair. We stand under command. Not the command of princes or presidents, but the command of the Crucified and Risen Lord: “You shall love the Lord your God… and you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39). “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). Before we speak of politics, we must speak of this.

There is a sickness in our civic life that is spiritual before it is political. It is the sickness that forgets the Image of God. Scripture tells us: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image…’ So God created humanity in His own image” (Genesis 1:26–27). This is the foundation of Christian ethics. There are no spare people. There are no disposable people. There are no people without value. There are only icons of God.

St. Basil the Great wrote: “The one who has contempt for the poor insults his Maker.” St. John Chrysostom cried out: “If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.” To degrade the image of God in the other is to deny Christ Himself.

Yet it is precisely this which we see unfolding before our eyes. We have watched in recent months as the current president authorized — through clandestine operations later confirmed in the international press — the illegal capture of the Venezuelan president on foreign soil, treating the sovereignty of another nation as a disposable inconvenience. This is not merely a geopolitical maneuver. It is a violation of the principle that every nation, like every person, bears dignity and cannot simply be seized or discarded. Christ says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9), not “Blessed are the strong who take what they can.”

We have heard public threats issued against Mexico, a neighboring nation of men, women, and children for whom Christ died, as if nations exist to be intimidated into compliance. St. Cyprian reminded the Church in the third century: “The world is one household; God is the common Father.” To threaten one’s neighbor is to reject the command: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). It refuses the apostolic mandate: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

We have watched with astonishment as reports emerged regarding the president’s attempt to acquire Greenland by force, as if territory and people were commodities. This is not new. The old temptation of imperial power is always to reduce the world to something that can be taken and owned. Augustine warned against this in City of God: “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but great robberies?” Without justice, might is not right — it is merely robbery at scale.

Most grievously, we have seen the actions of ICE in Minneapolis, where raids tore families apart in the name of border security, leaving children crying in parking lots and mothers detained in silence. It is written: “The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow” (Psalm 146:9). God commands Israel: “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). St. Gregory the Theologian writes: “Do not despise the stranger; we are all strangers to this earth.” To round up immigrants as threats rather than welcome them as neighbors is not merely unkind — it is a denial of the Gospel.

Some will argue these actions are necessary for national strength. But Christ has already defined strength. He gave the Beatitudes, not the slogans of empire. “Blessed are the meek… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the peacemakers…” (Matthew 5:3–11). These are not suggestions. They are the charter of the Kingdom of God. No executive order can overturn them.

The Church must therefore resist the temptation to baptize national power as divine mission. The United States was never a Christian nation in any biblical or apostolic sense. Christ did not establish a nation-state, but a Body (1 Corinthians 12:27). He did not promise “America First,” but “The last shall be first” (Matthew 20:16). He did not command His disciples to conquer territories, but to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). When Christians confuse the Kingdom with the nation, we grasp for glory that is not ours and abandon the Cross that is.

St. Ambrose rebuked Emperor Theodosius to his face for the massacre at Thessalonica, saying, “The emperor belongs to the Church, not the Church to the emperor.” So too today: the president belongs to the judgment of the Gospel, not the Gospel to the judgment of the president. The Church does not exist to flatter Caesar, but to convert him.

Our task in this hour is not to defend a party, nor to sanctify a leader, nor to retreat into silence. Our task is to make Christ visible. To show by our lives what He stood for, what He commanded, whom He loved, and whom He defended. “He has sent me to proclaim good news to the poor… to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18). If this mission makes us unpopular, so be it. The Cross was never a popularity contest.

Therefore I say to you, beloved: raise a banner for those the world despises. For the immigrant detained in a facility. For the refugee fleeing violence. For the mother whose child was taken in a raid. For the people of Mexico spoken of with contempt. For the people of Venezuela whose sovereignty was violated. For the citizens of Greenland treated as assets. For the prisoners. For the sick. For the stranger. For the unborn and the already-born. For the Black man pulled over in fear. For the Jewish community facing renewed hatred. For the Muslim family whispered about at the airport. For the transgender teenager terrified to go to school. For every human being mocked, maligned, or marginalized — not because it is politically expedient, but because it is Christ.

St. John Chrysostom asks us: “What excuse shall we have, if we neglect Christ in the poor?” And St. Oscar Romero, martyred for defending the oppressed, proclaimed: “The Church will live as long as there are those who love with the love of Christ.” Let no Christian say, “This is not my concern.” If it concerns the children of God, it concerns the Body of Christ.

We are not helpless. The diaconal vocation — whether ordained or lived as baptized service — is to set the table of mercy before a violent world. To proclaim the word of truth in a culture of lies. To guard the dignity of those who bear God’s image. To remind this nation that greatness is measured not in power but in love. The Lord said: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). St. James tells us: “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

So let us resolve in this troubled hour:

To speak peace where there is provocation.
To show mercy where there is cruelty.
To defend dignity where it is trampled.
To tell the truth where there is propaganda.
To remember Christ where He is forgotten.
And to love where it costs us something.

For when the nations are judged — and they will be — it will not be by GDP, or military strength, or political cunning, but by the Beatitudes.

May the Church in this land bear witness not to America’s greatness, but to Christ’s. And may our lives make it impossible for our neighbors to mistake what He stands for: justice, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and the inviolable dignity of every image-bearer under heaven.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.